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Present on the roundregardings of yellow vests, on the front line during the health crisis, these “invisible” represent more than 40% of the active population, according to a study.
They or they are carers, and take care of the elders. Housekeepers, who clean the offices at a time when their occupants are not there yet. Security guards checking bags at store exits. They are the invisible ones, which many see without looking at them or paying attention to them. They also pass under the statistical radar. Without them, however, supermarkets would not have been supplied during health confinements, patients transported to hospitals or packages delivered to homes. Clearly, our society would not turn round. Essential to the smooth running of the economy, these women and men remain a sort of unidentified social object, neither white-collar nor blue-collar, according to the traditional categories of the salaried body.
To better understand these shadow workers, the cabinet Occurrence conducted for two years, for the Foundation Work differently, an unprecedented survey of 15,000 French people: “The invisibles, diving into the France of the back office”, the results of which we present. Professions of the link and the care, the daily life (logistics, transport, trade) and the economic continuity, they compose a heterogeneous group, evolving mainly in the private sector, but also in the public service. At 54%, they are women, often at the head of single-parent families. Like Laure Calamy in her latest film, which comes out on Wednesday, Full timewhere she plays a governess who spends her time running once morest the passing time and following crowded commuter trains due to a transport strike.
The invisible represent more than 40% of the active population
Their weight is not negligible: they represent more than 40% of the active population. Behind each Frenchman there is therefore an invisible person working in his service, who takes care to prepare his order on time or to put his house in order, without this comfort agent himself being able to benefit from the services he delivers. Quite simply because they cannot afford it: 50% of them earn less than 1,500 euros gross per month. And when they are two to work, 50% receive less than 2,000 euros gross.
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Difficult, in these conditions, to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Only 13% of these essential workers have been able to save money and take vacations in the past two years. 93% cannot afford “a little pleasure” and 41% cannot satisfy their basic needs. Rising energy prices are hitting them hard. They live mainly outside the metropolises, and the car is essential to them.
It was to avoid a remake of the Yellow Vests that the government paid an inflation bonus at the end of the year to French people earning less than 2,000 euros – the public of the invisible – and that it announced on Saturday in Le Parisien a fuel discount of 15 centimes per liter from April 1, for a period of four months. Social assistance might offer them a breath of fresh air. Alas, a third party does not receive those to which they would be entitled due to complex procedures. « Our company does not reach its goal, regrets Patrick Levy-Waitz, president of the Foundation Work differently. Public policies must be more targeted and territorialized. »
Nearly one in two wears a uniform or work clothes
Away from the consumer society, these personnel also undergo their professional career. From evening to morning, their whole life is impeded. « They are united by a community of destiny: that of constraint on a daily basis, at work, in their ability to spend and to change trajectory.», details Patrick Levy-Waitzt. Subscribers to precariousness, they are also to hardship; 63% work standing up and a third have fragmented hours. Telework acts as a new frontier between those who have the autonomy to do so, and the others, forced to work on site.
“During confinements and strikes in transport, when everyone retired to their homes, we saw them, stuck in the classic work room: unity of time and place, recalls Denis Maillard, founder of Common Time. , a labor relations consulting firm and author of Essentials but Invisibles? (Edited by Aube, 2021). They have no leeway, it’s like a loss of self-sovereignty.» Even their outfit, they cannot choose it: nearly one out of two wears a uniform or work clothes.
The question of early departures for those who have held difficult jobs remains little mentioned
While the postponement of the retirement age to 65 years arises in the presidential campaign, the question of early departures for those who have occupied difficult jobs remains little mentioned. But we cannot eternally serve others without losing our health, as many studies have shown. Occupying a softer job might offer respite at the end of a career. Except these invisibles are professionally assigned. For lack of sufficient qualification – 58% have a baccalaureate level – they remain stuck at the bottom of the social ladder; 61% believe that they have no prospect of development. « However, they have relational know-how, notes Denis Maillard. When a delivery person drops off a package, it never goes as planned: the person is not there, the address or the code is not correct. He then demonstrates agility. It is a valued skill among executives, but not for them. Why ? »
Faced with such a picture, one might think they were disillusioned, and therefore abstainers. The Foundation’s study proves on the contrary that they still believe in the power of the ballot box. 86% say they want to vote in the presidential elections. In 2017, 80% did. Marine Le Pen (RN), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) or even Fabien Roussel (PCF) are trying to capture this popular electorate by proposing to increase wages and/or the minimum wage. To live with dignity of course, but also to be better recognized: this is also the message of this survey. However, few candidates suggest more fluid and less complex vocational training systems that allow them to draw another future. Essential measures so that these invisibles do not remain so indefinitely.